Main Tower

[Lark Ridigan]

Umbara was a dark planet in many senses. The planet was in constant shroud, and always cold, but not so cold that it died. Instead it thrived with a different sort of life, one that embraced the dark. The people were the same as any other creature of the night – they kept to themselves, and they ignored anything that ignored them. It was a perfect place for someone to remain inconspicuous. Lark was a master of the inconspicuous, and so it was only natural for him to gravitate to a place like Umbara.

The Emerrian Sith had come across a military complex that had been abandoned over a century ago, due to the lack of practical usage and general loss of interest in its location which had made it far more trouble than it was worth to maintain since the era of bygone wars waged by past powers. Lark found it to be a most worthwhile endeavor to recover, and had done so legitimately, though only as a middle-man for an anonymous third party that didn’t exist, which effectively removed him from any further connection to the place. Now he used it as his seat of power, allowing himself to fade anonymously into the darkness that engulfed Umbara

In the past 18 years or so, it had proved to be just what he’d needed for his operations. The followers he’d gathered to his cause had met here first and determined how they would go about reaping the galaxy’s ripe harvest. The first few had been mere snatches to see what the results would be, but those results had been promising. Their methods had refined. Their interests had expanded deep within the prevailing shadows of Umbara, and eventually spread out to fill the shadows of other worlds as well. But always discrete, always disjointed and disinterested. Ships in the night with a common purpose, and only one continual connecting thread.

Lark himself, the master of the unseen reapers, moved alone between the different cells as needed, cultivating interest, discipline, and above all else, loyalty. He never passed an opportunity to reward the faithful and wise among his reapers, or to take note of foolish mistakes. He was not a heavy-handed master – indeed was quite capable of being gentle, as he demonstrated in the care with which he handled the two sleeping toddlers as he carried them from his ship into the ex-umbaran complex – but his closest followers knew the shrewdness and potential for harsh vindictiveness, having seen it on rare occasions where a follower tried to follow the rule of the ambitious apprentice, and seize power through the bloodshed or usurpation of their master. His grizzled, many-marked features told the story of his clawing journey to his current place of power from the stock of gun-for-hire Sith who had stooped to the role of mercenaries. But as weathered and rough-cut as his visage was, it was the only frequent reminder of what lay beneath. He uttered quiet words with his rasping voice in the smooth, rolling accent that seemed to to contradict the vocality that escorted it.

Handlers were present at Lark’s arrival, greeting him only as “Master” and responded to his instructions quickly and efficiently, carrying the still-sleeping children off to the next phase of their journey. The imposing emerrian watched them go, and then turned to a lift that carried him to another, and another which led him to his private chamber at the peak of the facility which had once been a command center. There he checked on reports from Chimera Cell, which he had just visited on Taris. The first of the two cloned children had already expired, and the other was nearing the same fate. Lark glanced at the name on the report and made a satisfactory nod. Good work had been done in the extraction, and good work continued in the close-out monitoring process. He made a mental note to return and give appropriate accolades to the young reapers who had done his bidding, if their performance held in coming days.

Leaning across his desk, the weathered near-human wrapped a heavy hand around the handle of a glass pitcher, pouring himself a glass of water which he sipped at as he scanned through a smattering of other reports from different cells. Hydra Cell on Corellia was investigating another possible extraction lead on a nearby planet; Manticore Cell was still in the process of acquiring a few rather expensive pieces of industrial hardware, which took time and careful attention to covering tracks in order to accomplish in manageable and inconspicuous steps; He’d assigned some of his best minds to that project. And then there was Naga Cell. He’d stopped there on his way to Taris, and the message he’d received from them was not a report, but rather an inquiry – a simple one at that.

::How did my puppets perform?::

Lark’s thin lips twitched in the barest hint of a grin, and he tapped out a quick reply, then leaned back in his chair. Swiveling around, he stared out the one-way bay window to the strange, luminous darkness beyond that composed Umbara’s terrain. His little kingdom, for now.